A modest cure
by Ensimismada
Summary: Rukia learns that healing is about more than just curing wounds with spirit energy. IchiRuki.


A modest cure

**Rating**: PG for contemplating bodies, but it's sweet and clean. Ichigo curses once.  
**Warnings**: Set in some imaginary time shortly after the Society Arc, but the spoilers are only up to episode 18 or so. I take some liberties with post-SS arc Rukia.  
**Summary**: Rukia learns that healing is about more than just curing wounds with spirit energy.

"Ichigo, what is that?" Rukia asked as he entered the room, shutting the door firmly and collapsing heavily onto his bed, one arm draped across his face as if to block out the world. Something was odd about the way he moved...

"What is what?" he responded, idly scratching the back of his neck.

"All over your arms... it's red!"

"I got a sunburn." He had been working outside, helping in the community effort to repair the local children's park; it had been ravaged in a recent Hollow attack. Everyone thought the damage was due to a freak gas explosion.

Rukia turned in the desk chair to stare at him, disconcerted. "A burn? How did that happen?" She prodded.

"I was out in the sun too long." Ichigo rolled onto his side to look her in the eyes. "Look, it's perfectly normal. I just happen to tan a little faster than most people, okay?" Like he needed her permission for it to be okay...

"It's not going to affect my Hollow-hunting abilities or anything, if that's what you're worried about," he added as she continued to frown. "It's not permanent damage. It'll be sore for a few days and then turn into a tan."

"So all of your skin is now like that?"

"All of my skin that was in the sun. I was hot, so I had my shirt off. My back and my shoulders got it, too." Ichigo shrugged and immediately regretted doing so. Maybe he should lie on his stomach...

"You look like a tanuki!" Rukia concluded brightly. He could see the gleam in her eyes that indicated she was eager to illustrate the situation for him. He'd be damned if he let her subject him to any more of those awful drawings. Willingly, anyway.

"Shinigami don't get sunburns?" He asked irritably, trying to divert her attention from the horrid, raccoon-like outline around his eyes that indicated he had been wearing sunglasses all day. Come to think of it, she was almost ghostly white, as were most of the other shinigami he remembered. Except for Yoruichi, who broke nearly every expectation anyhow, they'd all been pale. That Gin guy was downright pasty.

Rukia continued to watch him. He grimaced as he again rolled to his back, shutting his eyes and looking exhausted. Are the living really so fragile as to be injured just by sunlight? Glancing out the window, she saw the muggy glow of dusk. He must have been working in the July heat all day.

"Maybe I can heal it..." she suggested quietly.

Ichigo brushed off her concern easily. "Nah; save your strength. What if you really need to heal me, later?" The words, though spoken gently on his part, still stung her. He had all but robbed her of her power the night they had met, and these powers were soon destroyed in him by the violent sword of her adopted brother, the brother who had come to take her to her death. It felt like ages had come and gone since the night she had left Ichigo lying on the dark street in the pouring rain, bleeding his life away. And yet he had still come to save her; she was alive because of him...

However, her powers had yet to return. For Rukia, it was a bitter, constant reminder of the past, a past she wasn't even permitted to think of as a one-time rescue. Now, he was immensely powerful. She was alive but almost helpless, continually dependent on him. _Are my powers really gone?_ she wondered; it was a thought that traversed her mind more often than not these days. As if in response, her left knee popped loudly when she shifted her weight and began its regular, dull aching. Rukia ignored the pain stubbornly, not thinking it wise to take yet another soma fixer so early in the week.

"Besides," continued Ichigo, "I can use some aloe. Pop should have some somewhere." With that, he stood up and walked out the door of his room and down the stairs. Rukia stared after him, watching his movements carefully. His easy, smooth glide had been transformed into a rather stiff motion that made her wince in vicarious pain. Even the back of his neck was cherry red, clashing garishly with his bright hair. And yet, his body was still so well-formed, strongly defined and strangely appealing...

Rukia blinked, shaking her head. _He is all wrong_, she thought firmly, trying to reassure herself. His body was oddly shaped, his brow was always scowling, and his hair – his hair was an untidy mess that stood out so very boldly, a lot like his loud mouth. Nothing about Ichigo fit the mold of beauty or symmetry or even passed for mundane normality.

_No, he **is **beautiful._ He had a beautiful, strong had learned to be a loner, had learned to rely on herself and no one else, and yet she found herself attracted to him despite her contempt for her dependency on him. _Ichigo is different_, she mused. _He doesn't have some vain goal to prove himself, like that Quincy. He's not trying to get ahead in the world, like Renji. He just wants to feel needed, like he has a place. _She wanted tell him that he did a place. She ached that his place would be beside her, always.

As if to oblige, Ichigo returned with the "aloe". It was a small bottle. From this container he dispensed a droplet of clear, gel-like liquid into his hand and, taking hers, rubbed it across the inside of her wrist. Rukia gasped. "It's cold!"

Ichigo allowed her a small smile. "I told you, it's for soothing burns. You rub it in lightly, like this." He demonstrated by applying more aloe gel to the the skin of her palm, gently working it in with the broad pad of his thumb, still grasping the back of her hand in his. Rukia watched him intently as his strong finger worked her skin in slow, even strokes.

"I... see," she said awkwardly.

"Good. Now, just put it wherever you see red." Ichigo casually peeled off his shirt, tossing it in a corner. Rukia let out another gasp, startled. Even in the low light, his entire back was a bright, raw red color. It looked exquisitely painful. He sat down heavily at her feet, closing his eyes and hunching his back slightly in the way typical of a teenager.

_That's right_, Rukia reminded herself, _he's only fifteen_. With all that Ichigo had done and all that he had gone through, it was difficult to believe that he was barely past childhood. He had been forced to grow up quickly. S_o young, especially compared to me... _The thought left her somehow feeling sad, detached. What good had she done with all of her time in the afterlife?

For now, she would face this one small problem. Rukia leaned over his back, reaching for the bottle of aloe in his left hand. As she took it from him lightly, her fingertips brushed his worn knuckles. _He even has calluses on the backs of his hands_. No teenager's life should be filled with sleepless nights battling immense monsters. The living weren't even supposed to know of the existence of shinigami and Hollows, and yet she had thrown him into that world. _What have I done?_ Rukia asked herself desperately, angrily, as she had so many times before.

_His hands should not be like that. His life should not be like this. This is not how things should be_.

"You..." Ichigo began, turning his head to peer over his shoulder at her with one tired eye. "You need me to open the lid for you or something?" His tone was quiet, kind, but a teasing look flitted across his face. Surely she knew how to unscrew caps by now.

"Of course not, idiot!" Rukia snapped. She quickly demonstrated, glaring at him while she squeezed the bottle over her open palm. She emitted a slight squeak when the viscous fluid erupted out much more rapidly than she had expected. Her entire hand was engulfed in cool, clear gel before she finally managed to stop the flow. Ichigo snorted. He was not impressed.

"Just turn around again" she said curtly.

"Yea, yea. No dripping on the carpet."

Rukia stared down at the quivering gelatinous mess in her hand. Rub it in lightly, huh? The living could have the strangest remedies...

Her palm hit his back with a wet squishing noise, a bit like a slap. Ichigo winced and grunted slightly, but didn't say anything.

"Sorry" she muttered, sliding her hand at an angle across his shoulder. It left a glistening trail. She dug in with the heel of her palm lightly, experimentally. His skin felt warmer than she would have expected, like it was still burning.

Reaching over with her other hand, she began to work in the aloe. She quickly fell into a steady rhythm, rubbing one small area with both hands before moving over two palms' breadth. She slowly sped up her work as she grew more confident. The pair sat together, tranquilly sharing their small space in the world. His body was still and her movements deliberate. Time passed unnoticed. Night fell more deeply.

"It evaporates pretty quickly, so use as much as you need," Ichigo commented quietly.

Rukia nodded; there was no need to speak. Unlike his hands, the skin of his back, slick with aloe, was quite smooth. She had never touched him like this. It felt... nice.

While healing him with her spirit power, she would simply hold her hands over his wounds, hovering above the skin and never prodding beyond what was necessary. Now, her small, agile hands worked his flesh and felt his firm muscles underneath, muscles that attested to his work as warrior. Under the guise of reaching for the aloe bottle again with her other hand, she leaned in close to his body, smelling the sweet scent of his clean skin. His hair was still damp from showering and it formed little matted mounds instead of his usual pile of spikes. She idly followed a sinew that arced from the base of his neck across his left shoulder, gracefully sweeping away from his spine. Her fingertip traveled its length until it ran across a jagged scar, fully healed but obviously once quite deep.

Rukia frowned heavily as her aloe-bearing fingers continued, tracing the myriad scars across his back, his shoulders, his sides, his arms... At first, Ichigo stiffened under her probing, face coolly indifferent, but he soon relaxed as she moved slowly about his bare torso, examining each scar in turn. The marks criss-crossed his whole body, pale lightning marring a sea of reddened skin. Had he really gotten all of them for her? _Why did you do it? You shouldn't have... _her mind begged, not for the first time. Her throat caught and silent tears suddenly began to well in her eyes, guilt rushing into her heart like an abrupt, unbidden tide. This feeling was familiar and bitter, though she had seemed to be able to avoid it recently, when busying herself in the living world. _His world._ The intense emotions she had been holding back swept over her.

Noticing that she had stopped massaging and perhaps sensing her shift in mood, Ichigo turned his head to gaze at her over his shoulder, eye keen under a furrowed brow. He emitted a slight groan when she unconsciously squeezed a particularly red spot on the back of his neck, startled to see him watching her.

"I'm sorry" she murmured again, finger still touching the deepest gouge in his back. Her eyes, unfocused, did not meet his. She wanted to pull her hand away, as if direct contact with his scars was causing the guilt that was screaming in her ears and echoing from all the dark corners of her heart.

Ichigo turned to face forward again, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Rukia's hands still rested lightly on his back. Neither of them moved. After a moment,

"It's okay" he says calmly, still not moving.

Rukia wants to believe him. The aching burden that she has always borne flares up violently and she lets out a small sob. Somehow, these words alone tell her that everything will be alright, that she was worth it, that he would do it all over again, that she's alive and that's all that matters. Rukia wants to believe those words more than she has ever wanted anything.

Ichigo slowly reaches up and grasps her hand in his. He squeezes gently, reassuringly. "It's okay."

His soft brown eyes meet hers in earnest and she can feel the pain beginning to dissipate.

The tears slowly begin to roll down her cheeks.

"Thank you, Ichigo."

The healing has begun.


End file.
